Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Review: The Sea Fairies by L. Frank Baum

A few days ago, my friend Kae-Leah, who I mentioned in my "Mermaid Princesses" post, sent me a recommendation and link to readThe Sea Fairies by L. Frank Baum, author of the Oz books. I was hesitant at first because it didn't sound like a story about mermaids from the title, and older books can be unnecessarily wordy. To my surprise, it was entirely about mermaids, and it was just the right length. I couldn't help but wonder as I read it why no one has turned this book into a movie yet.

The Sea Fairies, written in 1911, explores the adventures of a little girl named Trot and her friend, Cap'n Bill, a sea captain entrusted by her mother to babysit her. The two main characters have a fantastic relationship that is rarely explored in the media. Cap'n Bill does not act like an authoritative figure to Trot. Instead, he listens to her and tells her everything she wants to know about the sea to the best of his knowledge. She trusts him without thinking he is omniscient. When he tells her the siren-like myths about mermaids in which they drown everyone who comes into contact with them, she is doubtful. She is convinced if everyone who saw a mermaid was killed, would be no stories about them at all. Meanwhile, deep in the sea, the mermaids were listening to her conversation. They come to the surface to invite her to visit their world so they can prove that they are not monstrous sirens like the in tall tales Cap'n Bill has heard.

In most stories where a child visits a magical world they so in secret, like in Peter Pan. Their parents or guardians never find out or often don't believe them. In The Sea Fairies, Cap'n Bill insists on accompanying Trot and the mermaids into the sea because he takes his duty to watch her very seriously. According to Cap'n Bill, being drowned would still be preferable to facing Trot's mother if something were to happen to her. This detail made perfect sense. Why would a responsible adult entrusted with a child's safety allow the child to run off to a potentially dangerous world by herself?

For most of the story, Trot and Cap'n Bill are escorted by the mermaid princess, Clia, and the mermaid queen, Aquareine. In some ways, this seems almost too convenient for Trot. One day, she's dreaming about mermaids and wondering what they're like, and the next, she is an honored guest of the highest-ranking royal mermaids. Clearly, mermaid society is very different from human society. Mermaid princesses do not need ambassadors to represent them, and queens must clear their good name on their own instead of asking servants to do it for them. It is a truly benevolent matriarchy. Princess Clia and Queen Aquareine wanted to show Trot and Cap'n Bill the best their kingdom had to offer so that they would never suspect that they were wicked sirens again.

The descriptions of the underwater kingdom in this book were also quite lovely, They reminded me of some of the visuals in the mermaid-themed Barbie movies. The palace was described to have mother of pearl and jewels encrusted into all of the architecture, a glass roof that allowed Trot to see the ocean above her from inside her room, and comfortable soft cushion seats. If these descriptions were incorporated into a feature film today, they would be even more stunning. Baum described the mermaids in a very traditional way, with beautiful faces, long flowing hair, and tails that sparkle with pink, green, and blue scales.

There was one additional detail he added of each mermaid using "fairy magic" to create a tiny pocket of air all around them so that they stay warm and dry at all times and nothing they touch gets decayed by the rough salt water. This answers a lot of questions people like to ask about mermaids such as how all of their possessions stay in pristine condition while underwater. They particularly like to give this criticism about Disney's The Little Mermaid when they see all of Ariel's human treasures preserved perfectly in her grotto, including a book and a painting. I thought this was a terrific detail because it also allows mermaids to wear pretty dresses and have curly hair or lighter-colored hair that would not be affected by the water.

Even though The Sea Fairies is chock full of imagination and whimsical imagery, it still contains a very wicked villain. Zog, the demon-like sorcerer, is mentioned toward the middle of the book but does not show up until near the end. This keeps the novel from getting too dark since he is quite terrifying. Rumored to be the most wicked sorcerer to have ever lived in the sea, Zog lures Trot, Cap'n Bill, Princess Clia, and Queen Aquareine into his lair using the tentacle-like "sea devils." He makes his intentions to have everyone suffer before ultimately killing them very clear, and our heroes do not doubt these intentions for a moment. In spite of the danger, the mermaids are quite confident in their ability to keep everyone safe.

Trot never gets scared no matter what happens because she trusts so much in Cap'n Bill and the mermaid princess and queen to protect her. This is another reason I thought she was a terrific protagonist. Unlike the sheepish Dorothy, who goes to Oz alone and wishes for nothing more than to find a way home, Trot is excited by the prospect of adventure and danger because she knows that the adults will always look out for her. This is very refreshing when there are so many stories about children trying to defy authority. Though Trot is an inquisitive girl, she also knows when to do as she is told.

The Sea Fairies has quickly become one of my favorite books of all time. Since it has been around for over a hundred years, I'm very surprised it does not get more recognition among mermaid fans. It has all the makings of a classic children's movie--a smart, brave, and responsible little girl, a sea captain with a peg leg, a mermaid royalty, and a wicked and powerful villain. One day, I would love to see the magic of this story captured on the big screen.

Comments

This was one of my favorite Baum books back when I read them all. My top was "Tik-tok of Oz" which featured the fairies of different kinds of light, and a longer-than-usual appearance of Polychrome who was always my favorite character. Of course my fondness for the Oz books was partly because of the gorgeous art nouveau illustrations and Ozma's crown with the giant flowers on the sides.

Popular posts from this blog

The internet has been buzzing about Kingdom Hearts III finally getting a release date after fifteen long years of anticipation. Unless it gets delayed again, we will be able to catch up with Sora, Donald, and Goofy as they travel through the realms of various Disney movies on January 29th, 2019. There have been a couple of trailers dropped over the last few days revealing footage from Frozen, Tangled, Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Hercules, and Pirates of the Caribbean. For me, the biggest announcement came from the latter half of last night's trailer in which Larxene of Organization XIII remarked that Elsa might be one of the new seven pure hearts that they needed for their latest quest. Anyone who has played the first game knows that this is a reference to the Princesses of Heart, a select group of Disney Princesses who had their chance to become video game royalty when they got captured by Maleficent in an attempt to use their pure hearts to open the Door to Darkness. My biggest pe…

Back around 2012, a friend of mine sent me a press release about how Disney was making a new princess show about a little girl from a poor village who becomes a princess overnight when her mother marries the king. The endearing image of the little girl on the press release instantly caught my attention with her unique reddish-brown curls, playful expression, and gorgeous lavender dress that was dripping with pearl accents. Something about this description and image got me so excited for the series that I got to work right away on making a grown-up sized cosplay of Sofia's elegant gown. The series premiered on Disney Junior with a TV special called Once Upon a Princess in which Sofia received her legendary Amulet of Avalor and sang about her insecurities for her future life as a princess heroine in the song "Not Ready To Be a Princess." I loved her instantly. Over the next six years, she took me on a four season-long journey filled with Disney Princesses, fairies, mermaid…

We all had lots of fun playing with princess dolls as kids and brushing their hair until it became ratty and tangled. For those of us who are older, there has is the option of purchasing pricier collectible dolls that are made with finer details in their hair and clothes and come with their own stands for display purposes. While princesses have never exactly been lacking in options for collectible dolls, the Disney Princess Designer Collection that was revealed at the D23 Expo in 2011 was the start of something special. Each princess had her own designer dress that looked like it came straight off a modern-day runway. The collection was released alongside lithographs, cards, mugs, and other paraphernalia featuring beautiful matching artwork. The dolls themselves weren't sculpted from your typical Barbie mold. They had fully articulated wrist and elbow joints, salon quality hair that stayed perfectly in place, bigger painted eyes, and long realistic eyelashes that you could actuall…

In 2008, the Philippines released a mermaid princess telenovela that was based on a popular graphic novel by Mars Ravelo in 1952. Dyesebel is loosely based on the story of "The Little Mermaid" with a few distinct differences. It was Dyesebel's mother, Queen Lucia, who first fell in love with a human and left the underwater world of Sirenea to be with him, sacrificing her memories of her life as a mermaid in the process. Dyesebel was born on land, but because of her tail, her mother returned her to the sea, entrusting her to her best friend, Banak, to raise her. Her human father, Tino, was murdered by humans who believed that mermaids were bad luck. Unaware of the circumstances of her birth, Dyesebel grew up curious about the human world until one day, she fell in love with a human and was doomed to follow in her mother's footsteps. The 2008 adaptation of Dyesebel is performed in the native Filipino language, Tagalog, but I was able to watch it with English subtitles …

Thirteen years after the release of Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts III is finally available for us to peruse. With over a decade of buildup and hype, this game is a massive undertaking both to play and to review. There's just so much of it. There are a lot of cutscenes, a lot of new abilities, a lot of Disney characters, a lot of hidden Mickeys, and a whole lot of backstory to catch up on if you haven't played all nine of the previous games in the series. It's just a lot in general. Fortunately, Kingdom Hearts III definitely lives up to all the hype. It is beautiful, emotional, and fun to play, but because of its enormous scope, it never lets the player take a breath. Between the endless array of minigames and the endless array of bonus abilities popping up on your screen during battles, it's very difficult to find time to sit back and enjoy the rich and tranquil environments of the Disney movies that you are playing in. For the purposes of this review, I will be fo…

If you're one of the five people on Earth who still hasn't seen the new Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailer that dropped this morning, I'm here to break it down for you. The trailer featured roughly the first half of a scene in which all of the living voice actresses for the Disney Princesses reprised their roles as Vanellope snuck into their secret internet headquarters that was presented at the D23 Expo last year. A screenshot released last week previewed the scene with Ariel missing, but now we see that she was just off-screen combing her hair with her favorite dinglehopper in a blinged out version of pink tea dress along with lots more animation of other the princesses in their oddly disproportionate new CGI style animation. Let's take a look.

For starters, it's a bit odd how Ariel and Cinderella have swapped the levels of bling on their ballgowns. In the 1950 animated movie, Cinderella's dress appeared to have made from a lightweight silvery-white fabric emblazoned w…

Today is a major accomplishment for me. I started this blog 100 days ago, and I've managed to write a new post in it every day since then. Some of the topics were easier to come up with than others. I also had to go back and edit some after the fact due to poor proofreading. Speaking of which, I'm really sorry about the disastrous short story from my first Story Saturday post. The whole thing was written on my phone on the way to a Mermaid Art Show event in San Diego, so I was a little distracted. I promise to put more effort into future Story Saturdays, which should be easier now that I will no longer be writing new posts every day. Don't worry, though. I will still keep everyone informed of the latest princess news and review all the new princess movies and specials. Without further ado, in celebration of my 100th post, here is a list of 100 princesses with all of the posts I've made about them (in no particular order). Thank you so much for reading my blog.
1-11: T…

Being a princess can mean different things to different people. Being a Disney Princess gets a little more complicated. There's a joke from Disney's 2016 Moana about what makes a Disney Princess when Moana tries to tell Maui that she isn't a princess, and he claims that if she wears a dress and has an animal friend, she is, which is pretty much on par for Disney standards. Even though Moana isn't listed on the official Disney Princess page due to her movie being recent enough to market off its own name instead of the Disney Princess name, she was still included in the Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailer. Moana is pretty clear about how she sees herself is in the song "I am Moana" in which she states "I am the daughter of the village chief." The lovely Auli'i Cravalho who lends her voice to the spirited protagonist is also rather vocal vocal about how she considers Moana more of a heroine than a princess. Of course, with the way princess culture has evolved…

I had barely woken up this morning when I discovered that nearly all the fan blogs I follow had already posted an update about the trailer for the highly anticipated Frozen 2 before the sun had even come out. Either Disney is really good at building hype or most bloggers don't sleep. This movie has been teased since the last D23 Expo back in 2017, but the details were shrouded in mystery until today. A few images of Anna and Elsa's new look got leaked early, but today we were finally able to see where these leaked images came from. Wreck-It Ralph 2 played fun with the way Disney had been keeping this project under warps by teasing a preview of it after the credits and rickrolling the audience. The real teaser trailer pulls Frozen fans further down the rabbit hole of Arendelle by making us ask more questions than it actually answers. With its adrenaline-fueled score and lack of dialogue, it poses the question "What is Frozen 2 about?" See if you can figure it out bel…